


Chain of Command

by MamaFriesmeal



Category: GoGo Sentai Boukenger | Rumbling Squadron Boukenger
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, by about 12 hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 06:05:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4293591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamaFriesmeal/pseuds/MamaFriesmeal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Masumi questions why Sakura is Sub-Chief instead of Souta. Souta laughs in his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chain of Command

It had been a few weeks since the Boukenger unit had expanded from three members to five. Unofficially so, as the two new teammates were still provisional, but Souta saw them as part of the team. The adjustment had been a large one, more so for some members than others. Souta was very close with Akashi and Sakura, which was natural after several years of working with them. He remembered it being an adjustment for them when he had first joined. But even then, it hadn't been nearly this drastic.

Natsuki, well-meaning as she was, wanted to bond with Sakura since they were the only girls among the unit, but she was too high energy for Sakura to endure for more than a few minutes at a time. This was coupled with Akashi wanting to welcome and teach Masumi, who still only saw Akashi as a rival. Akashi took to Natsuki well enough; Being a little childish himself, Akashi was able to follow her logic and energy rather well. But Masumi seemed to disregard Sakura almost entirely. When he did speak to her, it surprised Souta how condescending Masumi could be. He would roll his eyes when Sakura scolded him for misusing equipment, and whenever she issued assignments, he would pick a fight that he would inevitably lose and then sulk about.

Souta ended up taking the brunt of Masumi's sulking, since Natsuki seemed more concerned about impressing Sakura by completing the tasks -- Often running tours upstairs in the SGS museum -- she was assigned as best she could in spite of her less than professional demeanor. Souta was the only "neutral" party in the room, and for some reason Masumi seemed at least more receptive to him than to Sakura. He didn't mind really, given that he wanted to get everyone quickly acclimated to kill the tension on the team. Things were so much easier when they all got along…

Today was one of the days where Souta had to placate Masumi after he had complained upon being confronted by Sakura that he had, yet again, failed to turn in reports on his recent assignments. Masumi had snapped that paperwork had nothing to do with adventure, which Sakura had shot down with the fact that this was their job and not a game. It had only escalated from there until Akashi and Makino had pulled Sakura away, distracting her with equipment repairs and questions about the forms she meticulously kept. With Natsuki working on her own tasks upstairs, that left Masumi in Souta's hands.

"Who the hell does she think she is?" Masumi grumbled, folding his arms on the table as he stared across at Souta. Souta glanced up from his tablet, looking away from the upcoming tasks he was researching on Sakura's orders.

"She thinks she's the Sub-Chief." Souta looked back to his work, smiling pleasantly as he attempted to derail Masumi's complaining, "Which is good, because that is exactly what she is."

"Says who? Someone needs to knock her down a peg." Masumi goaded, as if he wanted to shake up the chain of command. Souta didn't look up. "You were a spy, right? You've got to be more qualified than she is! Why should she rank over you?"

Souta had planned to just let Masumi get the whining out of his system, but at the suggestion that he try to steal Sakura's job out from under her, he lifted his head, spent a long moment staring across the table at Masumi, another looking to the small office where Sakura was repairing a ScopeShot, and then another back to Masumi.

Souta then burst into laughter.

Masumi, flustered by not getting the response he was hoping for, sputtered, "W-What?! What's so funny?!"

"Are you serious?" Souta tried to control his laughter, but the idea was so ridiculous. "For one thing, I don't want Sakura's job. And there's no way that I'm more qualified than she is. You don't know anything about her, kid." Souta grinned, going back to looking over his data. Sakura didn't make a big show of her prior Special Forces position. It was obvious after observing her, but Masumi wasn't nearly that perceptive. "Akashi's the Chief because of his history, but Sakura's the one who calls the shots because no one could keep this place running like she does."

"But--!"

"Akashi says go, and we go." Souta interrupted Masumi's likely weak attempt at a protest, "But without Sakura none of us, Akashi included, would have any idea where we're going or where we've been." Souta enabled the screen in the table, pulling up the files he was working on. "These are the upcoming assignments that Sakura assigned me to research."

Masumi stared down at what had to be thirty files displayed in a scattered arrangement on the table's screen. "How can she expect you to get through all these in just a couple of days?!" Masumi protested, "Doesn't that bother you!? This will take weeks to get through!"

"Maybe for you." Souta scoffed, "And maybe if anyone else was organizing them. Chief doesn't know how to prioritize one "adventure" over another. Chief would just start at the top of the stack and launch us blindly headfirst into everything one after another." Souta explained with an amused smile. His affection for their leader was clear. "But Sakura knows what I'm capable of and what Chief is capable of. She and I work out which we can get easily, and which will be harder, and which are more urgent. Then I research in that order." He tapped the screen and the files all shifted to either red, yellow, blue, or green. Red files were marked with three exclamation marks, yellow with two, blue with one, and green files had no exclamations overlaid. "She'll listen to my opinions, but the final call on mission priority is hers. I respect that because she has never once been wrong."

Masumi frowned at the array of files on the table, then at Souta as he smiled at the work. "Sakura can be a tough nut to crack, I admit. It took her a while to warm up to me too when I first came on." Souta folded his arms on the table, mimicking Masumi's stance, "But she wants the attention more than she lets on. She shut herself off from everyone for a long time, and Chief started to break through that. We've had a hell of a time opening her up, but we're getting there. If you push she's going to push back, and she's a hell of a lot tougher than you are. She's worked hard to live up to being the Chief's right hand, and she takes it pretty seriously…"

"…But?" Masumi could tell there was something that Souta wanted to add onto the statement.

Souta smirked. Maybe Masumi wasn't a completely hopeless case. "Chief has vehicle 1, I have vehicle 3. Haven't you wondered why 2 was vacant for you to claim and why Sakura has a Vehicle 5?" Judging by the surprise on Masumi's face, Souta assumed he hadn't thought of it at all and laughed again, shaking his head. Hopeless after all.

"This is just something Makino told me once, so I don't know if it's exaggerated at all, and don't go spreading it around, but when Sakura joined she was offered BoukenBlack and the GoGo Formula. After looking over the specs for the suit and seeing that BoukenPink's specialized weapon was a water rifle, she insisted on having that suit instead." Souta looked over to where Sakura was working. Just as Souta's affections for Akashi were obvious in the way he spoke of him, the same affection came through of Sakura. "They tried to explain that it went against protocol to give the Sub-Chief slot 5 in stead of Slot 2, but she insisted that she would perform better if she didn't have to learn a whole new fighting style to use the Radial Hammer. They offered to change the slot numbers to put Pink and the GoGo Marine in slot 2, but she said they would have to re-do all of the forms and filing and that would be a waste of time."

"Doesn't that just prove she's a pain and is too worried about work?" Masumi argued.

Souta let out a small sigh and shook his head, "You really don't know anything about her… Did you miss the part where she totally tossed aside protocol because she wanted a different suit? And then she glossed over any changes required by that protocol so that she wouldn't draw unnecessary attention to herself." Souta chuckled softly, watching Sakura work with her back to them, far enough away that she wouldn't be able to hear.

"Maybe one day you'll get it, once she's ready to let us know what she's got going on in her head, but until then…" Souta tapped a red file labeled "Heart of Goadom - 5", which pushed out all of the other files and expanded to show the research that Souta had done. "This is our next assignment. The three of us have talked it over with Mr. Voice, and if you and Natsuki can follow orders and retrieve this Precious as members of this unit, then you're in for good. But that's going to mean following Sakura's lead, got it?"

"Tch… What if I don't want to work with her?" Masumi shot back.

Souta shrugged, "Then you're out on your ass. Chief and Sakura have pretty high hopes for you and your friend, but we need to know you're reliable if you're going to stay."

"H-High hopes? Really?" Masumi sat up a little straighter, "Both of them?"  
Souta nodded, "If either one of them had doubts, you wouldn't have made it this far. Chief trusts Sakura's thoughts more than his own half the time, and Sakura will follow any order he gives. They both think you two can do this, but your disrespect is wearing pretty thin on Sakura." Souta sat back a little, closing the files and disabling the screen in the table, "I've worked solo with her on a lot of missions, and she's willing to put up with a lot from me because she knows that when push comes to shove, I'll get the job done with as little damage as possible. She doesn't know if the same goes for you yet. You'll get her respect when you earn it." Souta picked up his tablet and stood, walking around the table to pat Masumi on the shoulder, "So do your best to show her what you've got. We're heading out tomorrow afternoon."

Masumi watched Souta walk out to the elevators, likely headed out to do more of the research Sakura had assigned, and then turned toward the small office where Sakura was finishing up the work on the ScopeShot. Maybe she really was more complicated than he had thought. And he definitely had to prove himself to the Immortal Fang. Fine, then. If they wanted to see what Masumi could do, then he would go all out.


End file.
